Kathleen J. Lauwers, RN, MSN

Consultant, Joint Commission Resources, Inc.

Kathleen Lauwers’ health care career has included progressive accomplishments in clinical care delivery, academia, quality and leadership. She has the ability to rapidly assess situations, collaborate with multiple stakeholders, develop options and implement results-focused interventions. Ms. Lauwers utilizes a systems approach to develop and coordinate care across the continuum in both adult and pediatric settings. Her focus on patient-family centered care with an interdisciplinary partnership leads to safe, quality care.

Ms. Lauwers’ consulting expertise includes the design of quality resource departments, continuous quality improvement, measurement of indicators, root cause analysis, error reduction, high reliability processes, standards and survey process readiness. She facilitates executive long range planning, both individually and with leadership teams. She designs educational interventions that integrate patient-family centered care with interdisciplinary integration, and is results and outcome focused with practical, setting-specific interventions.

Ms. Lauwers’ clinical experience includes critical care, home care, nursing quality, research and education. She was an assistant professor of nursing in two baccalaureate university programs, Wayne State University and University of Detroit, Mercy. She progressed from academia into management with various nursing director roles. She was CNO of two multi-hospital health care delivery systems which both had long term care, home care and acute care services. Most recently, she worked directly with the CEO of a large children’s medical center to redesign the quality resources and creatively lead the organization through survey preparedness and sustainability for continuous readiness.

Ms. Lauwers received her bachelor’s of nursing science and master’s of nursing from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. In her academic positions she has chaired curriculum committees, taught multiple subjects and designed competency programs. She has led international nursing continuous education programs. She is a member of AONE and Sigma Theta Tau. She is also a Joint Commission-certified Yellow Belt.